My complaint:
We stayed at the Rodeway Inn in Billings Montana on the night of 7/1/23. We checked in at 6:38 P.M. The rate I signed for was $119.49 and that is the amount the receipt shows. Less than an hour after check in I happened to check my bank account and I had 2 charges for Rodeway Inn for $131.05 each. I was concerned so I went to the front desk and showed the transactions to the desk clerk (Crines). She was confused and called someone (I assume a manager). They told her they were pre-Authorizations to assure there was money in the account. They told here they would be taken off the account shortly. But why 2 pre-authorizations? Why are both the wrong amount. We also showed the desk clerk (Clower) the 2 incorrect transactions at checkout. She told us basically the same story.
Later the next morning 7/2/23 when we checked our bank account there were 3 transactions of $131.05 for Rodeway Inn. So I called and talked to the Manager, Bobby Canulli . He said again they were all 3 pre-authorizations. I finally got him to admit he did not understand there why were 3 of them and all of them were for the wrong amount. He assured me that all 3 transactions would be wiped out when my bank opens Monday 7/3/23. Well I called my bank on Monday they said they would check it out. They called back and said from their end there were indeed 3 transactions of $131.05 as well as the transaction for $119.49. The transaction for $119.49 was posted to my account on Monday. The bank said it appeared from their system that the 3 transactions for $131.05 would indeed come out of my account on Wednesday. We set up a meeting on Wednesday to dispute the charges and actually file fraud charges with every agency I could.
Well when I checked my bank account this morning the 3 charges for $131.05 have disappeared. This partly solves this but I feel I should get my payment of $119.49 refunded. First of all this totally ruined the rest of the vacation for us. Also with an extra $393.15 pending in the account we could have overdrawn our bank account and incurred overdrafts at $30 each. Lastly it could have cause later reservations to be denied for lack of funds and we would have been without a place to stay over 800 miles from home.
I do not know if this is the regular procedure that your motel follows but if so it is totally unacceptable for the reasons I already stated. If it was a mistake the manager should have admitted that and took stronger actions to see that the mistake was fixed. Lastly I do not know if this was attempted fraud or not. Since it could be I will be acting accordingly until my $119.49 is refunded. I will report to this to any agency I can think of and follow up with them until they assure me that they have made sure it was not attempted fraud.
Pease respond ASAP with your intended actions (refund or not) so I know whether to proceed with reports of attempted fraud. or not.
Suggested solution:
Refund the $119.49 to my bank account. This was on 7/1/23 for Room 102. Account 8777694337
